Here’s something I wish someone had told me before I spent a single dollar on my first apartment. The most important design work you’ll ever do happens before you open your wallet. It happens in your head, on a quiet afternoon, ideally with zero pressure to get it right.

I know that sounds backwards. We’ve all been trained to think design starts at the store, or the second you open a shopping app and start filling a cart with things that look pretty in a perfectly lit photo. But the prettiest room in the world will still make you feel off if it doesn’t actually fit your life. And the only way to know what fits your life is to get honest about what makes you happy. Not what makes a stranger on the internet happy. Not what makes a magazine editor happy. You. So before we talk about sofas or paint or storage baskets – and before you buy anything for your home –  let’s talk about you for a minute.

Learn more design insights from my book, Right at Home, including Why You Don’t Need to Know Your Design Style and  Function: The One Rule Behind Every Good Design Decision.

Before You Buy Anything For Your Home

Why Happiness Comes First 

Let me start with the single most important idea in how I design anything. What makes you happy is pretty much the most important thing ever, and I mean that literally. Your happiness is the ultimate twofer. It’s the foundation for both good home design and great mental health at the same time, because when you design your home to serve and improve your mental wellness, it magically also becomes a home that reflects your personal style. That happens for the simple reason that happiness is really, really good for your mental health.

So when I sit down with someone, I don’t start with their Pinterest board. I start with their life. And here’s a fun fact about how that goes: by the time someone’s done answering my questions and their style has revealed itself with total clarity, you know how many of my questions were actual “design” questions? Zero. Because your design style stems from happiness in real life, which comes from a hundred different parts of who you are, not from a catalog.

Learn 5 Ways Your Home Can Make You Feel Better

What makes you happy?

Happiness Is A Muscle: Let’s Warm it Up 

Treat what comes next like a workout for a muscle you haven’t used in a while. Your only job is to clock when you feel excited. What are you drawn to? We can build an entire look off a single detail, so you don’t need a grand vision. You just need to notice the “oooh, I love that” moments and the “I like this, but not in that color” moments equally. As the great designer Bunny Williams put it, “if you love something, it will work. That’s the only real rule.”

To warm the muscle up, run yourself through what I call the happiness gut check. Go looking, in your home or just in your memory, for these things:

• Something that reminds you of someone you love
• Something that reminds you of the last time you felt truly safe
• Something that motivates or energizes you
• Something that engages your senses
• Something that reminds you of something positive, or pulls a strong, good emotion out of you
• Something that smells awesome
• Something that makes you feel comforted or cozy
• Something that makes you feel supported or taken care of
• Something that takes stuff off your plate
• Something that anticipates your needs
• Something that makes you feel like you’re moving toward a goal

Notice that not one of those is a “design” prompt. That’s the point. They’re life prompts, and your design style is hiding inside the answers.

For even more info on finding what makes you happy and much more, check out my book, Right at Home.

Before You Buy Anything For Your Home

The Fill-in-the-Blank to Find Your Style

This is my favorite way to unearth it, and it works precisely because none of it sounds like decorating. Grab a pen and finish these honestly:

• I’ve always wanted to take a trip to ___
• I love the way ___ dresses
• If I could eat one thing for the rest of my life, it would be ___
• My all-time favorite TV show is ___
• If I had a day off, here’s how I’d spend it: ___
• If you looked in my closet, you’d see a lot of ___
• When I’m having a bad day, I like to ___
• The playlist I have on repeat right now is ___
• If money were no issue, I’d be a ___
• Whenever ___ is having a sale, I’m 100 percent unreachable
• A lot of people don’t know I’m secretly a big fan of ___
• Before I die, I want to see ___ in concert

Don’t get hung up on the fact that you don’t know how to “pick” a style. Just think about all the other things in your life that make you so damn happy. I promise that you’ll find yourself fully immersed in a style, and realize, like Dorothy, that you had the power to bring yourself home all along.

Before You Buy Anything For Your Home

Why This Is Self-Care, Not Shopping 

Being this intentional about your choices has a measurable effect on your mental wellness, which is why home design goes so far beyond decorating. It’s a profound act of self-care, and you’ll feel the effects both instantly and over time. It’s also not a call to spend big. So much of this requires little to no money because, like happiness, good design doesn’t come from making huge purchases. The ultimate litmus test for good design is simply whether or not it works for and serves you.

what makes you happy

The Bottom Line

You are your most important client. The whole reason to design your space well is so that it takes care of the one person who has to live there every single day. So before you buy anything, get quiet and get honest about what makes you happy, in all the ordinary corners of your life, not just the design-y ones. Trust what comes up, even the answers that surprise you. Your instincts have been the CEO this whole time, and they’re ready to get to work. If I can learn to trust mine, you can absolutely trust yours.

This article is adapted from my book, Right at Home: How Good Design Is Good for Your Mind. For the full deep dive, including room-by-room guides and interactive workbook activities, grab your copy here.